Jenny Colgan - Talking to Addison

Josh scuttled his chair round to me, muttering crossly.

‘I’m sorry, but we appear to have been barred from the international Burberry convention,’ I said to him, and he grunted. Then his face lit up.

‘I know, why don’t we have champagne? We can have fun, right?’

Kate and big beautiful thingy suddenly let out a pealing laugh.

‘Josh, their definition of fun is probably comparing international money markets. But I would very much like another Becks, if you’re buying. And some salt-and-vinegar crisps, which are essential medicine in the treatment of black eyes.’

Ridiculously, as the bar was trying to be trendy, it sold those cute teeny bottles of Moët & Chandon, and Josh returned laden with my beer, the crisps between his teeth, and a quarter bottle of champagne to himself, which he sipped morosely through a straw. I couldn’t help laughing and had to restrain myself from rubbing him on the head with my knuckles.

‘Don’t worry!’

‘How can I not worry? I’m twenty-eight years old and I haven’t had a girlfriend for three years!’

‘Or a boyfriend.’

‘Would you stop with that already.’ He pouted. ‘Some of us just … take a bit longer to get round to things than other people.’

‘What, like puberty?’

‘Do you want to be homeless again?’

‘No!’ I said emphatically.

‘And anyway, I’ve got a right to complain – you’ve got a date and Kate’s obviously met her soul mate, and you’ll all move out and have a squillion babies and I will die all alone.’

‘I know!’ I said brightly. ‘When I marry Addison, we’ll stay in the house and you can babysit our beautiful and brainy children.’

‘Oh, right. And I’m the sad fantasist.’

‘Not at all. He put this Elastoplast on my cheek. I’m going to keep it forever as a symbol of the first time we touched.’

Josh looked appalled.

‘I think I’m going to be sick. Holly, please don’t go all gooey over Addison …’

‘Too late!’ I exclaimed triumphantly.

‘… I really think there’s something a bit wrong with him. You know, like that weird form of train-spottery autism thing that boys are meant to get?’

He thought for a minute.

‘I wonder if I could get it.’

‘You could count things, I suppose. Then memorize them.’

‘Ah yes. I can see the appeal.’

‘Josh,’ I said, ‘don’t worry about me and Addison.’

Kate, unsurprisingly – well, a little bit surprisingly, I’d have assumed she was a ‘Rules’ girl as it had the kind of anal, personality-smashing techniques she tended to like – chatted to the beautiful thing all night then swanned off with it to dinner somewhere. Le Caprice, I assumed. I had no idea what Le Caprice might be like, but it sounded the kind of place that people who wore designer underwear (I knew Kate did, because I stole a pair of her pants out of the drier once, but I couldn’t get both legs in them) might go.

Josh and I hadn’t stayed long. He’d decided he had to get back to gen up on some football scores.

I hung around the next morning, Saturday, to see if she’d come in or not and was disappointed to find that she had and therefore clearly hadn’t gotten into something drunken and debauched, which would have been enjoyable for me. She swanned into the kitchen at around ten, carrying the Financial Times and looking composed and well rested. I busied around, pretending to be making coffee, and bursting to ask her what had gone on, however she calmly sat down and opened her newspaper. I tried to contain my frustration.

‘Coffee?’

‘Decaf, thanks, if you’re making it. Black, no sugar.’

I looked over at her.

‘That’s a very pointless cup of coffee.’

She raised her eyebrows at me.

‘Actually, it consumes more calories than it contains, like celery.’

‘Aha.’ I poured the water out. ‘So that’s what coffee is for.’

She smiled primly at me and went back to her paper. I tried again.

‘It’s my big date today. You know, at the Natural History Museum.’

‘How nice for you.’

‘Hey, maybe we could double date some time – Finn and I and you and …’

Kate put her paper down.

‘Do you really think so?’

I tried to imagine the situation and couldn’t.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, aren’t you seeing him again?’

She immediately bristled.

‘Of course I am. I expect John and I will be seeing each other on a regular basis.’

‘John? John what?’

She affected disdain.

‘Oh, I don’t recall.’

‘Sounds made up to me.’

‘What sounds made up?’ mumbled Josh, wobbling in unsteadily like a new-born kitten.

‘John Nobody – Kate’s new love.’

‘Oh God – another one,’ said Josh, spooning sugar into his coffee.

‘WHAT do you mean by that?’ said Kate ferociously.

‘I don’t know – how many suave pretty-boy married men have chatted you up this year and not given you their last name in case you dig them up out of the phone book?’

‘John is not married. I could tell.’

Josh and I glanced at each other.

Suddenly the phone rang, and we all jumped three feet. Kate hopped up, then, when she realized we were watching her, feigned a leisurely gait.

‘Ehm … I’ll get that … probably the office.’

‘Probably Relate,’ I said, ‘calling you in as a witness.’

Josh and I peered round the kitchen door as she furiously motioned us away. Her expression quickly revealed her disappointment, however. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand.

‘It’s Addison’s mother.’

‘I’ll get him,’ I said quickly, and rapped on his door.

‘Hrh?’

‘Addison, it’s your mum.’

‘Can you tell her I’m out?’

‘I don’t think that’s going to work.’

‘He’s in,’ said Kate down the phone.

‘Can you tell her … I’m … busy.’

‘He’s busy,’ said Kate. ‘Yes, he’s eating. No, much the same. No, no sleep, no. OK, I’ll tell him.’

She hung up.

‘When’s the last time you spoke to your mother, Addison?’ I asked him.

There was silence from behind the door.

‘Not since he’s been here,’ whispered Josh.

‘I normally speak to her,’ said Kate. ‘She sounds all right most of the time.’

‘Right.’

Kate bent down to pick up the post. As she did so, something slid out from the pocket of her exquisitely fresh Meg Ryanesque pyjamas.

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, grabbing it, but it was clearly her little mobile phone.

‘That pesky office, eh?’ said Josh.

‘Erm, right.’

I thought it would take me three minutes to get ready, but of course I had forgotten about my black eye, now puce and vermilion, and found myself in a desperate, excited rush whereby no matter how I tried I couldn’t seem to get it together to leave the house. I’d forgone the Alice Cooper style for a prolonged attempt to whiten it out, which was now making me look like one of those eyebrowless sci-fi entities. I toyed with buying an eye-patch and pretending I was starting an early eighties revival, but it would take too much explaining, and, given that I’d only met this bloke for two minutes, I wanted to appear as non-mad as possible.

I still hadn’t decided what to do about the nurse thing. After all, I had kind of got this date under false pretences, and it also meant he was a bit of a perv. I hummed and hawed and stomped around a bit, which was clearly annoying Kate. Normally on Saturdays she was up at eight, dashing to gyms and swimming pools and popping into the office and Joseph and the Fifth Floor at Harvey Nicks and going to exhibitions whilst Josh and I lay on the two squashy old sofas in the living room, watched black-and-white films, and ate Jaffa Cakes, but it was eleven thirty and she wasn’t dressed yet. As well as the mobile, her pager was placed on the kitchen table and she seemed to have been reading the same page of the paper for some time.